


De Plus en Plus

by Plenty_of_Paper



Category: A Simple Favor (2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plenty_of_Paper/pseuds/Plenty_of_Paper
Summary: Emily Nelson is used to being wanted by everyone around her until they want too much from her. Stephanie Sommers is different. Stephanie Sommers looks at her like she's just glad to be by her side.
Relationships: Emily Nelson/Stephanie Smothers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 117
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	De Plus en Plus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lenore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/gifts).



**Part I: Meeting**

The first time Emily meets Stephanie, it’s raining. She’s annoyed because Dennis Nylon’s not just a huge dick, he’s incompetent and making her life harder, but she had to leave the office in the middle of his tirade at her to pick Nicky up from school. It’s one of the few times she’s had to do that since they moved to Warfield, but Sean had asked, begging off on a “late meeting.” She wants to say no, but he pitches his voice low and asks, in a way that sounds like begging, and she opens her mouth and says “fine.”

It’s not fine, she’s not fine, but she picks Nicky up and suddenly, there’s a mom standing in front of her, smiling and introducing herself as Stephanie and suggesting a “playdate” and the very last thing Emily wants to do right now is handle a playdate. But her boy is as stubborn - and smart - as she is, and he calls her bluff the only way he knows how: planting his body in place and refusing to move. Her head hurts, and she lets out a few choice words and Stephanie’s eyebrows raise high on her forehead. Emily’s about to tell her to fuck off with her judgement but thinks about the way Nicky will whine in the car and acquiesces.

Stephanie talks a lot. Her high-pitched voice, like the cartoon animals on her socks, bores holes into Emily’s skull as she chatters about her vlog and moms and the challenge of developing the perfect zucchini chocolate chip recipe. She’s so goddamn innocent, Emily thinks, this woman who’s so preoccupied with gaining more viewers has probably never experienced true struggle. Being a stay-at-home mom with her kid all day whose most difficult task was making yogurt while her husband

At first, she undresses in front of Stephanie to make her uncomfortable, to shut her up. She watches Stephanie’s eyes rake up and down her body while she pulls the faux-collar from her vest. It’s a look she’s used to getting, a look filled with hunger and need. Emily feels a thrill - like a cat spying her prey - maybe innocent little Stephanie isn’t so innocent after all, and maybe this could get interesting.

Emily decides she might want to fuck Stephanie when she catches her dancing in the living room. It’s un-self-conscious and sexy, and her little gasp sends that thrill right between Emily’s legs. She wants to hear that gasp again, in this room.

“Give me a little more,” she says, turning her demand into a joke with a smile, smirking when Stephanie does. Sean’s always telling her she wants more, more, more, more from him, more from everyone around her, and so what if she does. She had to make do with so little when she was growing up, she’ll take what she can get. It’s not her fault everyone around her wants to give her everything.

Emily catches the way Stephanie watches her and Sean, and she grinds her hips into her husband’s just to watch the woman gulp. She’s not expecting the small woman to lick her lips, raw hunger on her face for a split second.

She’s going to be a fun one to take, Emily thinks.

**Part II: Confessions**

The thing is, though, that’s just the beginning and quicker than she can say “fuck off,” Emily finds herself actually enjoying Stephanie’s company, or not hating it at least. They establish a rhythm: at least twice a week, Stephanie picks Nicky up from school, then Emily meets them at the park or the big playground in the next neighborhood or at Stephanie’s house, which always smells warm. They send the boys to play, Emily drinks a drink (or two or three), and sometimes Stephanie joins her.

The more time they spend together, the more Emily sees that Stephanie - smart, competent, adorable Stephanie - likes being bossed around. Just a little.

At first, it’s the little things.

“I hate that prick,” she groans one afternoon, flopping onto her couch during another play date. Dennis Nylon had disparaged plus-size women to some gossip rag the day before, leaving the mess to Emily to clean up. She’s good at her job and sweeps the comments under the rug with an apology from the company and a promise to do better in the future, but by the end of the day, there’s a rage headache building up behind her left eye.

“Fix me a drink, would you, baby,” she says without thinking, pressing her cold fingers to her temple, her eyes closed. Two minutes later, Stephanie’s at her side, handing her a glass of wine.

Emily takes a sip, and her eyes close of their own accord as the alcohol flows over her tongue and down her throat. It pools, warm, in her stomach.

“That’s a good girl,” she says, smiling over the rim of the glass. “I’m going to have to find a way to thank you for all the help you’ve been.” She takes another sip as Stephanie blinks in surprise, a blush spreading across her cheeks and down her collarbones.

If you’d told Emily a year ago that she’d be spending so much of her free time with a wholesome housemom (she’s not a wife, after all), she’d have laughed in your face. But she likes how much Stephanie wants to please her. She likes the way Stephanie studies her.

All her best partners were like that - they adored her, memorized her, made her the focal point of their art - and she basked in their worship, came to demand it, then to expect it. Until they threatened to come too close to her most fiercely kept secret, until they crossed her in some way, until they began to demand from her.

Like Diana. Diana was a great fuck (that tongue piercing!), but she wouldn’t stop looking. She’d look at her for hours, would beg her to sit for a painting for one more hour, just one, one more please. The artist’s gaze on her began to feel like a scalpel, slicing away at her still-precarious mask. So she left and took the only painting of her face she ever let Diana make. It was the thing she guarded, owned most fiercely, and she wasn’t about to let that drunk almost-talented painter take it from her. Diana had spent months begging her to come back, sobbing in the rain about how she would do anything, anything for her muse. But she wanted too much from her, took too much of Faith, and Faith doesn’t owe anyone anything.

Stephanie, though, looks at her like she’s just pleased to be near her, like she just wants Emily to be pleased to be near her. Emily wants to see how far she can push that, has always liked to see what people are willing to do for the privilege of worshipping her, so when the young mom starts hinting at a “dark side,” Emily suggests trading confessions.

“No, I - I don’t know, I shouldn’t,” Stephanie stutters, clearly taken aback at the suggestion.

“Stop avoiding and tell me,” Emily says, letting just a hint of steel into her voice.

Never in her dreams could she have imagined just how taboo this dark side of Stephanie’s really was.

“Brotherfucker!” she crows, genuinely delighted. It’s one of the rare times she’s heard a story that rivaled her own in levels of ‘fucked up’ and it delights her that it’s from a mommy vlogger.

Stephanie blushes deeply as Emily laughs, her hair in her face as she makes half-hearted excuses about martinis.

“Hey brotherfucker, you want to stay for dinner?” Emily tells herself she asks because she wants to keep teasing her friend about her incestuous fling. If she’s being honest with herself - which she hardly ever is - she asks because Sean’s out of town doing research for his next book and she doesn’t want to be alone with Nicky in this giant, steel trap of a house.

“I would love to stay for dinner, that would be lovely.”

“I can’t wait to see what you make,” she says languidly, and Stephanie doesn’t even blink, just shifts immediately into Mom Mode. They turn up the music while Stephanie cooks, and maybe Emily sits by the kitchen island at first, watching her closely. When she stands, she pretends to wobble, her hand brushing deliberately across Stephanie’s rear as she steadies herself.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she says, flashing her best rogueish smile and putting her hands up when the woman looks at her. “Accident.”

“I,” Stephanie’s eyes cut away from her, “I don’t mind.” She speaks so quietly, it’s very nearly lost in the hiss of meat searing on a hot pan.

“Oh?” Emily asks, stepping behind Stephanie and leaning in, her lips brushing gently against the woman’s ear.

“I don’t mind,” Stephanie says, squaring her shoulders, her voice stronger.

“You like it when I touch you like that?” Emily’s surprised. She expected to have to tiptoe around the bush a little longer, but it seems to be inviting her in. This, after all, is what she likes about the small woman. A sexually deviant interior, with a candy mom coating, and Emily can’t wait to eat her. She’s just about to lean in to kiss her when the sound of pounding footsteps echoed through the house.

“MOMMY!” Miles’ little voice pipes down the hall.

“Gosh, that sounds a lot like two hippos running through the house. I bet there are two hungry hippos who want some pasta!” she sings, and looking at her, you’d never think she was anything but a mom. “Wash your hands with soap!” As the boys disappear into the bathroom, Emily presses her body against Stephanie’s back.

“To be continued,” she whispers.

**Part III: Sex**

The first time they fuck, it happens mostly because Stephanie finally tells her the truth about her affair, about Miles, about how her husband and Chris both died.

“I miss him,” she says, sounding loud in the silent living room.

“Which one,” Emily asks. It’s a rude question, but she can’t help it. She has to know.

“Both,” Stephanie says, tears welling in her eyes. “I think loneliness probably kills more people than cancer.”

She looks so goddamn sad, her eyes big and wet and looking at Emily like she expects her judgement. But Emily’s fucked up too, and she knows what it’s like to feel like you were alone with your secret, to have glass walls built around your heart to protect your most important secrets.

So she places her hand on the back of Stephanie’s neck and pulls her closer. Kisses her once. Twice. Kisses her until Stephanie pulls away and composes herself, smiles bashfully.

“God, I’m so embarrassed,” she says, rolling her eyes at herself as she brushes away her tears.

“It’s all good, baby. Just another Tuesday,” she winks. Stephanie blushes, bites her lip, and Emily raises an eyebrow. Maybe it isn’t any old Tuesday. Maybe -

“Kiss me again,” Emily says, letting just a hint of steel lace her words. Stephanie hesitates for one last moment before she presses her lips to Emily’s, an almost desperate whine in the back of her throat. Emily pulls back.

“Have you ever been with a woman before?”

“I kissed my college roommate.”

“Like you kissed you brother?”

Stephanie colors, opens her mouth, shuts it again.

“We only made out but,” she says, moving in to kiss Emily again, who blocks her mouth with a hand.

“But?”

“Emily, please.”

“You’ve already told me about your brother. Are you hiding even more depravity behind that sweater than I thought?” Emily gasps in mock indignation.

“It’s not messed up,” she says, chewing on her lip and fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve, “but.”

“Baby, c’mon, tell me. You didn’t fuck her but you…” she lets her voice trail off, a clear invitation for the other woman to fill in the end of the sentence. Stephanie ducks her head so her hair falls into her face.

“I’m just worried it’s going to give you too much power over me,” she mumbles into her hair. Her face twists and she covers it with her hands, groaning.

“What, was she your mistress or something?”

“No! Nothing like that!” Stephanie squeaks, her face now so bright red she’s practically steaming. “She was just kinda mean, and -”

“I can be mean,” Emily says, pulling on a fistful of Stephanie’s hair. “Do you want me to be mean to you?”

“M-maybe.” Stephanie whimpers it, closes her eyes shut as if she’s expecting Emily to hit her.

“I won’t hit you if you don’t want me to,” she offers. Stephanie nods her head, still hiding her face. “What do you want.” When Stephanie hesitates, Emily barks, “tell me.”

“I want you to touch me,” the brunette gasps. Then it’s like a dam breaks, and words gush out of her. “All over, please. Please touch me.”

“Like this?” Emily traces a hand down Stephanie’s neck, ghosts over her collarbones.

“Yes,” she moans.

So Emily spreads the small brunette woman onto her bed, savoring how desperate and touch-starved she is, how responsive. When she licks a wet stripe on the inside of Stephanie’s thighs then blows, Stephanie jumps, then moans.

When Emily calls Stephanie “brotherfucker,” she’s gratified when the woman’s legs fall open wider.

“You’re just as fucked up as I am,” she hisses, shimmying Stephanie’s pink polka-dotted panties down her legs. “You hide in a cheery mom costume, but I see you for the fucked-up creature you are.”

Stephanie moans, quietly, piteously, “yes.”

It’s another notch for her bedpost, getting this perfect mom into her bed, knowing her secrets, knowing how she sounds when she’s being filled, how she gasps when Emily’s fingers curl inside her. Emily loves fucking women, it’s why she convinced Sean to have a threesome. She’d made him watch her blow his TA’s mind with her mouth before she let him stick his cock into her. But she doesn’t want to share Stephanie with him. She doesn’t want to share him with Stephanie. Not this time. It feels too dangerous for some reason, like the woman would know too much about her.

“You fucked your brother in your dad’s house,” she says, thrusting her fingers into the woman’s warm cunt. “You fucked him in the bed you share with your husband.”

“I’m close,” Stephanie whimpers.

“I’ll let you come, baby, but only if you answer a question.”

“A question?”

“How many times did you have sex with him inside your house?”

“I…”

“Come on, baby,” Emily says, “otherwise, what are we even doing here?”

Stephanie jerks her hips, and Emily tuts, removing her hand altogether.

“Once a year,” Stephanie’s gasp turns into a high-pitched whine when Emily slides three fingers into her soaking cunt. “Once a year since the first time.” It’s the answer she’s been looking for.

“You really are sick,” she hisses with a smile, fucking Stephanie in earnest. “You’re disgusting.”

And Stephanie comes, her back arching off the bed and she cries out as her pussy spasms around Emily’s hand.

**Part IV: Falling Apart**

Of course no good deed goes unpunished. Faith had shown up again, demanding more money, and Hope had done the first thing she could think: she ran.

The day she gets Faith’s message, she snaps into planning mode. She leaves the office as quickly as she can, scanning her surroundings warily, in case Faith’s waiting for her nearby, and she calls Stephanie as she peels out of the road.

“Hi!” Stephanie’s cheery voice comes through her car speakers, and she feels a flood of relief. At least she won’t have to worry about Nicky.

“Stephanie! Thank god you picked up. Hey, I just have a little emergency.” She thinks she sees a car following her, so she makes a sharp right and another few turns and when she looks up, she doesn’t see it.

“I need your help,” she says, interrupting whatever Stephanie’s been saying.

“Are you okay?” Stephanie sounds concerned, like she’s about to ask if she can help, and Emily rushes to reassure her she’s fine.

“I’m fine, but I do need just a simple favor. Can you grab Nicky from school? Sean’s in London, his mother broke her fucking hip, and I got a big fire to put out at work.”

“Oh my god! Poor Sean, poor you,” Stepanie says. Poor me indeed, Emily snorts quietly to herself. “Anything I can do to help, yeah.”

“You’re the best,” Emily says. She pulls into an Enterprise parking lot. “Hey, I gotta run, but I’ll get you back for this, okay?” She means it. She’ll take care of her Faith situation, then be back in a couple days, and she’ll reward the woman for being such a good friend.

“Of course, Nicky’s in good hands.” Emily’s heart is still beating terribly, but she knows that Stephanie will take care of her kid. She doesn’t have to worry about Nicky, and for a split second, she’s filled with such relief and gratitude she feels something a lot like love for the other woman.

“Hey, Stephanie,” she says, instead, pleased that her voice doesn’t waver, “you’re a good person. A true friend. I mean that.”

Then it all goes to shit, doesn’t it? Faith wants money, Faith threatens her family and her life and Hope can’t let her do that again. Hope can’t just leave this place and the people around her behind like she has all the other times her twin has blown up her life. Nicky’s here.

So she drowns her sister, and -- it solves everything. It’s like Faith gives her one last gift in death: a way out.

She hatches the plan and tells Sean (she can tell he’s not enthused, but he won’t say no to her, he can’t say no to her). And at first, everything works. When they discover the body and identify it as Emily Nelson, she breathes a big sigh of relief. There’s still convincing the insurance company that Sean and Nicky should get the payout; then they’ll leave town quietly and disappear into a new life. All she has to do is stay hidden for a few weeks.

Staying hidden proves harder for Hope than she’d thought it would be. She misses Nicky like a physical ache, as if she’s severed herself from a limb. She watches him as closely as she can, hiding in plain sight by his school so she can see him play in the yard during recess and she sits on her hands while she does this, to keep herself from reaching out for him.

And Stephanie - well, the little bitch moved right on in, didn’t she. She replaced her in Sean’s bed, she replaced her painting on the wall, she replaced Emily’s clothes with her own. And she won’t let Emily’s death go. She won’t accept the story, and she goes poking her perky little nose where it doesn’t belong.

Hope watches from afar, careful to keep to the parts of the forest that can’t be seen from the house, and she burns with a jealous rage. Stephanie and Sean fuck against the big windows in the bedroom Hope had once shared with him, they fuck in their bed, they even fuck in that big cold kitchen Stephanie had so admired.

She doesn’t care that they’re fucking. Of course Sean would want a taste of Stephanie’s pussy (but only after Hope had had her fill). Of course a woman who fucked her own half-brother for years would have no problem fucking the grieving widower of her best friend. Hope understands lust.

What she doesn’t understand - what she actually cares about - is that Sean seems to have caught feelings for this woman. Of course the bastard had; Stephanie coddles him and cooks for him, she rubs his brow when he has a headache. She mommy’s him, and he loves it, the pathetic fucking prick. Hope watches them cook together in the kitchen and jealousy gnaws in her stomach. She’s never had reason to be jealous before, and it infuriates her that she’s jealous because of them.

It’s all too much, so the next time she sees Nicky at school, she greets him.

“Mommy!” he shouts. She puts a finger to her lips.

“Whispers, buddy, okay?” she says. “How’s my little man?”

“Me ‘n Miles share a room now, but he gets nightmares and cries all the time,” he says. His face scrunches. “I don’t want to share a room with him. He’s a crybaby!”

“What about his mommy?”

“She’s not my mommy,” he declares emphatically. “I want you!”

“I know, baby,” she says, scooping him into a hug. The bell rings and she lets him go.

“Don’t go, mommy,” he begs, grabbing onto her leg.

“I’ll be back soon,” Hope says, prising his arms from her. She’ll have to hide out longer than she initially planned, but the case will go cold soon, and Sean will leave Stephanie and everything will be okay. “Mommy has to hide for a little while, but I’ll be back for you soon.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

Except, Stephanie doesn’t lay off investigating Hope’s disappearance. She’s determined to suss out what’s happened, talking about the case on her vlog. When Hope realizes that one of the moms had seen her on the way to the lake, had ratted her out to the woman, she’s so angry she trashes her motel room.

She sees her four million dollars about to burn, so she takes the bait Stephanie lays down in her vlog and meets her at the gravesite. Hope wears a cream striped double-breasted suit to the meeting - it’s provocative and sexy, she wants to throw Stephanie off, and showing off the curve of her breasts by not wearing a shirt should do just the thing.

Except Stephanie barely even blinks when Hope approaches her at Emily Nelson’s gravesite. She tells Hope exactly how she found her out - how she’d talked her way into the McLanden house, how she’d tracked Diana down, and Emily sees. She sees how Stephanie holds herself now, sees the confident set in her shoulders. Stephanie’s not cowed by her anymore. She doesn’t look at Emily like she’s blinded by the sun anymore. Hope realizes she was the one who was blinded, blinded by Stephanie’s “innocent mom” routine.

So she recalibrates. She’s always been good at that.

“There is another way,” Emily says, slyly, “one mother to another.”

“You’re a lot savvier than I gave you credit for,” Emily says.

“A lot of people underestimate me,” Stephanie shrugs. “I’m cute, I’m a stay-at-home mom, I run a mommy vlog. It happens.”

“You know, when we met, I thought we were the opposite kinds of people,” Emily muses, “but now, I think we’re exactly the same.” She scoots closer to Stephanie on the bench, slings an arm around the woman.

“I’m nothing like you,” Stephanie scoffs.

“Oh? We’ve both been underestimated, and we’ve used that to our advantage. We know how to manipulate people into seeing only what they want to see: beautiful, feminine women. We’ve smiled and giggled and pretended to be stupid to soothe stupid male egos, all while knowing we’re the most competent people in the room.” Hope slides a hand up Stephanie’s thigh.

“Well,” Stephanie says, putting her hand on Hope’s to stop its advance, “you’re manipulating me now, and I’m not going to fall for it.”

“Oh?” She brushes her lips down Stephanie’s neck.

“I’m not sleeping with you again, Emily. Hope.” the woman says.

“What? You didn’t like the last time I was mean to you?”

Stephanie shakes her head no.

“Funny,” Hope says. “I seem to recall you on your hands and knees, begging me to touch you. I recall you cumming around my fingers when I called you disgusting.”

“I don’t want that anymore,” Stephanie says, squaring her shoulders. “I don’t want to be another one of your broken-hearted sycophants.” Hope barks out a laugh.

“I’m serious, Emily. Hope,” Stephanie says, her voice rising slightly. “You play with people and you take from them and you use them, and I am not going to let you discard me like another one of your toys.”

“Fine.” Hope takes her hand off Stephanie’s leg. “Fine. I’ll be good.” When the other woman looks at her skeptically, she makes an ‘x’ motion on her chest. “Cross my heart.”

“Okay. So tell me. What’s this plan?”

Hope tells her: Emily will play the role of a battered beautiful woman, and she’ll play it to a tee. She’ll confess to staging the murder, but it’ll be Sean’s plan, Sean’s idea. They’ll make that idiot the abusive husband, the fall guy, the scapegoat. It’s risky and hasty.

And Stephanie looks right at her as she lays out their plan. Stephanie looks through her, and listens, and looks calm while Emily’s carefully sculpted world cracks irreparably.

**Part V: Epilogue**

Hope adjusts to prison better than she thought she would.

She’s running her own gang in six months.

She owns half her cellblock in less than a year.  
And every year, on the anniversary of the accident that killed Stephanie’s husband and her brother, she sends the woman a postcard in a sealed envelope.

Every year, it says the same thing.

“Brotherfucker.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this, Lenore! It's been a little while since I've written a full fic, but I had a lot of fun with this prompt - putting myself into Emily's/Hope's perspective and exploring a bit more of how Emily felt throughout the events in the movie!


End file.
